Andrew Lucas

This is how rumours start! Look on NPOR or even better buy the fantastic book by Niland and Plumley about the organ in St Paul's and then you will see that there has never been a 4' flute in the Swell. The only change to the Swell since 1872 came in 1977 when the Vox Humana was added.

Dear Tony I sent some information in to the NPOR, by email at least five or six weeks ago, regarding the disposal of the old organ (and specifically what has happened to the case) in St Peter, St Albans. I did this for openness and clarity and in order to avoid speculation, especially as a local newspaper reported the case's disposal incorrectly and I consequently had to deal with a certain amount of correspondence about it! Unfortunately, as yet it has not been added to the website. Andrew

Regarding St Paul's old Dome Chorus from the SE quarter gallery I believe that it was still there from the time of its redundancy in the 1970s rebuilding of the organ until quite late in the 1980s. The new chorus that replaced it was installed in the NE gallery. So there was no urgent need to remove it - it was just disconnected and left in situ. In the late 80s and early 90s a big tidy up of the gallery spaces took place in order to gain some extra storage off the church floor. The SE gallery was earmarked as an ideal area where chairs and staging could be stored out of sight. Unfortunately the redundant pipes and other bits of the Dome chorus needed to be removed to achieve this. I understand that there was little real consultation of either the organ builder or the organist, other than a cursory asking of whether these organ parts were of any use anymore. Receiving a negative answer the Clerk of the Works, or perhaps it was the Surveyor to the Fabric, arranged for its disposal and it was removed as scrap in the general tidy up of that part of the cathedral. This was much to the surprise of the then Organist, Christopher Dearnley, who seemed a bit miffed to see them dumped in a skip when he told me what had happened. So there you go - and the pipes were not re-used in any other organ. The provenace of the Trompette Militaire pipes is mentioned in 'A history of the organs in St Paul's Cathedral' by Plumley and Niland (Positif Press) p.186. The pipes are actually by Gottfried, and not, as organ folk-lore would have us believe, by Wurlitzer, who also supplied similar pipework for the organ in the Atlantic City Convention Hall. (Gottfried's characteristic oval stamp is on the boot of bottom C). The other changes you ask about are all well documented in that book. The additional stops for the South Choir were made possible by installing a new, larger, soundboard for the whole section. The only displaced stop in these additions to the South Choir was a 4' Gemshorn, dating from 1930. Its pipes are stored inside the organ (as are what is left of Father Willis's Pedal Violoncello and Mixture). The Fr. Willis 4' Principal having being returned to its original home on the Choir from the Great (where it was moved in 1930) enabled us to have a Claribel in Willis style (based on the stop on the Great at Salisbury) in its place. Hope that answers your questions.

All Saints Shrewsbury NPOR N00104

The other slightly less costly answer is to get the recitalists play on the chancel organ much more and use the present dome organ much less. Then you have the resources of a five (or arguably six) manual organ. All of the chancel organ can be heard very clearly in dome area, but only as long as the background noise from tourists is non-existent or kept to a minimum (and this is something which would apply in any large building, of course).

Maybe it just wasn't any good ... it happens, you know!

The Church of England's old standard texts: The services from the Book of Common Prayer (1662) and the (King James) Authorised Version of the Bible (1611?).

I'd forgotten about St John's where he said that he was complemented by someone on the piece of music he played as a voluntary, but that he had only improvised it. (I think his views on organs in general mirrored his attachment to the BCP and the AV)

Not sure about two things there - 1) did he play the organ after about 1916 when he was 'retired' from Salisbury due to ill health and 2) I'm not sure that he really noticed the organ reform movement that much? (I don't think he liked the RFH organ very much, but that's hardly a surprise. He wrote the Partita for a first performance there but it's not his best music, nor does it look like it was written with that kind of organ in mind)

Yes of course. Do it in September though - I'm on my hols at the moment.

He's back next term, allegedly. You don't need an introduction ... we aren't snooty here!

Acting in a Deanly kind of way ... (on sabbatical - alright for some, eh?)

I think you mean the Acting Dean of Antigua!

You're too kind! I know what you mean about Gloucester in both senses - the music (lines/textures) would sound clear but perhaps some of the timbres might be a bit ... er ... thinnner. I understand that he liked the dark textures from the organ sound - the challenge I enjoy is getting dark sounds and clarity when it's needed. (I was trying to avoid saying it, but it's another lesson I've learned from the organ here in St A's where we can do dark and thick, but clear, if that doesn't seem to be a total contradiction). I hope you don't mind me not answering the last question. Perhaps when all the approvals have been given, the money found and the contract has been signed ... the trouble is, as with all things like this, nothing has been finalised so there's no point in giving detail. But there won't be any surprises!

There are a few things that I would like to add about this topic, if I may. I was fortunate enough to be a student of HH in his very last years as a teacher at the RCM. Everything you say in the paragraph above was borne out by remarks he made to me; he particuarly loved the language of the BCP and the bible (AV of course), he loved cathedrals and places like King's and Gloucester especially and he relished the opportunity to write for them, but like many composers (Britten, Tippett...) he didn't really claim to have a belief in God in the Christian sense, just a sense of spirituality. In terms of ideal organs I have long been unconvinced by some of his music on big organs in large acoustics because of the lack of clarity in the musical textures. I think of, for example, the Paean (from 6 pieces) which almost always sounds a jumble ... there is a central section where I have struggled to make the individual melodic lines clear, for example. But there are organs, which are definitely not what one would call a classic Howells organ in that dreamy, romantic, aetherial sense anyway, where the individual lines can easily be be clearer. I was able to watch him composing (and playing the piano) and he was certainly then thinking in contrapuntal lines. I did wonder how much he really thought of the sound of an organ in practical, playing terms ... his keyboard style from, say, Lambert's Clavichord seemed to have merged into his organ writing. So maybe a big romantic organ for every one of his organ pieces may be a bit of a red herring, where the music often sounds just rather waffling. Also, as a matter of interest, I find that when I'm invited to play abroad I am often asked to play 'English' music, and I learned very quickly that they didn't mean Byrd, Redford or Purcell! One of Howells pieces, Master Tallis Testament, works very well indeed on many different kinds of instruments (I recently played it in Dresden on the large recently restored Jehmlich organ in the Kreuzkirche, as well as in the past at the Bavokerk in Haarlem and in Weingarten Abbey). Of course all three organs are very good indeed and are in wonderfully resonant acoustics, but it was also fun to make the organs sound as appropriately 'English' as possible and interesting to hear how clear the music was, so that I could evoke the sound world of an English cathedral but also play music that sounds like it has line and structure. That's all...

Exactly right.

But we are talking about different places and expectations. This thread is about cathedral music and in the context of cathedral evensong with BCP words (though usually modern translations of the bible readings - sometimes in itself a mixed blessing) my experience has shown that mixing 'easy listening' contemporary music with traditional choral music is difficult to pull off and achieve a successful outcome. Parish services are different. On the whole a mix is helpful because then the whole experience is inclusive rather then exclusive. Horses for courses...? (The danger for parishes might be that the choirs and organists who insist on only making music that remains firmly within a traditional mold could eventually end up being ousted altogether by a forward looking, and often younger, congregation. That perhaps leaves the traditionalists and older members out in the cold ... precisely where they were prepared to leave the younger element ... but this is developing into a thread that is perhaps well outside the remit of an organ website!)

Absolutely, but does a worship song (like, say, Make me a channel of your peace) in a BCP choral evensong sit comfortably in that format? And is it a satisfying experience for the worshipper who chose to come to a cathedral evensong? We too have a flourishing music group, use music from Taize and sing worship songs but are careful to tailor the music to the expectations of those attending that particular service. A solemn choral celebration of the Eucharist is a different animal from the Parish Eucharist, for example. Yet a cross over of style can take people by surprise (in a good way) and refresh that service, whilst the Cathedral Choir attending the Parish Eucharist helps avoid reinforcing the stereotypical reaction that choral music is elitist and unapproachable. (It also incidentally introduces the children attending the service to traditional choral music of the church - we have recruited a number of our choristers through that route.) This site being about organs, I am just making the point that cathedral music has moved on to another place, whether we like it or not, from the first three quarters of the twentieth century. Contemporary worship and its music is no longer persona non grata in cathedrals today, and quite rightly so. Therefore choral evensong accompaniment plus the odd large diocesan service are no longer the only primary tasks of cathedral musicians and by association their musical instruments. There is a requirement that organists (and organ builders) are open minded in their approach and versatile in the execution of their respective crafts. Some organs will be better at being flexible in services as well a concerts and recitals (many church buildings double up as local concert venues too). I'm all for preserving good instruments and agree that New College and Redcliffe are superb instruments in their own right. The way forward is not necessarily obvious and when I read some of the posts on this site it can seem impossible to reconcile the differences between preservation and future development (e.g. Worcester). Some of us are fortunate to have situations where hard decisions have already been made (or the institution doesn't have to address them) or have the resources to be flexible without fundamental change. I am posting this in the hope (perhaps vain) that it helps some understand that there is a little more to cathedral music than perhaps seemed to be the case some years ago.

Are you saying that the organ here in St Albans lacks honesty and integrity? My experience tells me quite the opposite, which is why it works. But it is also musically versatile perhaps in ways that even Mr Downes did not envisage.

The adoption of services (and therefore music) of different styles has created a change that has been going on for many years in the cathedrals in England, or at least those that are alive to encouraging more people to enter them for worship as well as tourism. That is why perhaps conversations about soft solo reeds and 32' + strings registrations as the most crucial elements of a good cathedral organ are actually missing the point. The reality is that musical utility, subtlety and versatility are the essentials. I am sorry if I disappoint the traditionalists but the hard facts are that choral evensong is but one of many different and equally valid services that take place in the cathedrals of the twenty-first century. My worry for all this is exactly in the blending of styles. In my experience the most successful acts of worship are those that have a sense of integrity, including music, rather than those which are a patchwork quilt of styles and fashions. These are the very services that often leave no-one satisfied.

My experience of work being done on the organ at St Paul's was that each subsection of the chancel organ is quite independent (i.e. North and South cases and the north side section behind the sub stalls). When the organ was last cleaned each section was done separately so at any one time only a manual division or two was out of use. I think that the rebuilding of the organ in the 70s was done in a similar manner. In the 90s we used the Willis on Wheels organ for several weeks (whilst the organ's electrical system was replaced and updated to incorporate electronic transmission systems and piston memories). The small organ is remarkably good at producing a full sound for the Dome area and subtle enough to accompany full Sunday services without any worries.

The organ in St Peter's Church, St Albans, like many, has a bit of a chequered history. The present organ dates from the early 1970s. The principal achievement was to site the instrument at the head of the Nave after a long period in a chamber off the chancel. (The chancel is a long and narrow 'shoebox' structure, acoustically separate from the Nave, except for one narrow connecting arch.) But whilst gaining a good position, the rest of the work done in the 1970 was, at best, rather patchy and hasn't lasted well in tonal or mechanical terms. Old pipework, from a variety of sources, seems to have been reused and reworked, including the bodies of a flared Dolce stop being inverted to make the pipes of the Swell 8' Spitzflute. The whole organ gives a clear impression of a rebuild that had as its priority quantity over quality. It is, frankly speaking, not very good and certainly not good enough for the standard of music in that church today. It is very doubtful that anything from as early as the eighteenth century is in the organ and almost certainly has not survived unmolested (I can't lay my hands on the consultant's report just at this moment). So the church is replacing a dull and musically undistinguished instrument with a brand new one and are to be applauded for this, and for giving John Mander and his team the first opportunity to build a significant new organ in this country since the mid 1990s - something that is long overdue. What to do with the old cases has exercised many people. They are a patchwork of some old material tacked onto a modern construction, but give the impression of an eighteenth century organ. The old parts come from the case of a small instrument built for the much smaller church that existed then. As eighteenth century cases go, if that's what they are, the remains are elegant in profile if rather flat, but they (or to be more accurate it - only parts of the south face are actually 'old') are not particularly outstanding examples. No one is certain of the date or actual provenance of these case parts either. But crucially the old case would not represent the size or contents of the proposed new organ. Worse still, its size isn't large enough to take the bass pipes of a Diapason of appropriate scale, nor is it large enough to screen the intended new instrument satisfactorily. So the church and Manders have decided to build the organ inside two new cases, facing south and west, taking the view that the organ case is an integral part of an organ's resonating structure representing and working for the instrument as a whole, not just a facade -something that is stuck onto the outside to hide what is within. After considering various options (including 'hiding' it on the east face of the organ, just as Arthur Harrison did with John Geib's case at St Mary's Stafford 100 years ago, but now clothing the HNB organ in the nave), it was agreed that the best possible conservation of the ancient parts of the present cases would be to offer them to organ builders who specialise in building 'reproduction' (for want of a better word) early English organs. My understanding is that one of these is going to take the older parts after the organ has been dismantled. At some point in the future they will be used in a new organ elsewhere when the opportunity arises. The same would go for any ancient pipes found when the organ is dismantled. One or two stops from the present organ, for example the Tuba pipes, may also be used elsewhere, but there is little to commend re-use of the bulk of what is currently there. I hope that answers your questions.

I refer you back to my post on the 5th November, which I hope is very clear about the stance we intend to take. I am in total agreement about Downes' genius, but remember this organ is not 100% his creation (there was substantial input from Hurford and also Harrisons, of course - please read Baroque Tricks page 202 before considering making further pronouncements). Nor is it unaltered. Downes was a tinkerer, as many perfectionists are, and his input on several subsequent changes to the St Albans organ is also quite clear. He had second (and later third) thoughts about the voicing of certain stops, not least the Swell Mixture, which is in its third incarnation already, with completely new pipework each time. I have on file a note in Barry Rose's hand of a conversation with Downes at the time of the last replacement of the Swell Mixture which is quite revealing about his views on the voicing of one or two other ranks about which he obviously had some misgivings. But no-one with ears to hear can really say that the Fanfare Trumpet is an acceptable substitute for properly balanced Great reeds in the tutti. These were originally planned, but later revisions to the specification put other stops higher up the priority list. Where else did Downes use a high pressure, and effectively horizontal, reed? (Certainly not the reed at Fairfield which is much more polite than ours!) Hurford always wanted a 32' reed but cost prevented it. I know this because he and I talk to each other. Therefore if we can find the proper room and the necessary finance then we will probably gain one. It will not be a Contra Bombarde, but would expect it to be balanced more like the stop at St David's Hall. (When I played there recently I found that the two organs are remarkably alike, particularly to balance and register, but then their size and specifications are very similar too). Neither of these additions will substantially alter the fine sound and quality of the instrument. What we do have is a superb instrument which, though not totally flawless, has evolved over the last 43 years and I have every intention of making sure it remains for future generations in tip-top condition. All previous changes were made largely to counteract the fact that in the great length of our nave the organ loses a lot of its impact. Do remember that organs are there to do a job of work, and if they cannot fulfill that job then those who own them, or have a responsibility for them, may need to review the situation. To answer the first question - there will be no fourth manual at St Albans, nor extra swell box, orchestral reeds or Gambas. They would ruin the instrument's concept and character and we have dismissed any suggestions of such things.

I'm not at all sure what Jeremy Jones is trying to say, or trying to get me to say in his post. My experience at St Paul's was always that the greatest challenge to any player in any style of music was clarity of texture. With such a hugely challenging acoustic sometimes things came off and sometimes they didn't. The building itself creates its own unique 'atmosphere' - creating 'atmospheric' or aetherial effects was therefore always the least of my worries! It is not for me to judge whether any of us were successful in this. All I can say is that we all tried very hard! When I was recently attending a service at St Paul's I thought that Huw Williams playing was a model of clarity, elegance and poise. The music lived and sang and there wasn't a single gratuitous special effect.

I seem to remember that the 32' pipes on the Grove Organ at Tewkesbury were from Christ Church, Lancaster Gate, London.